This Blog's purpose is to offer information about congregations voting to leave the ELCA. Pastor Barnhart's other Blog offers information about current news events relating to the Church and the nation. It may be found here: http://livinginthetimes.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mark Hanson, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will be the keynote speaker at the biennial conference of Lutherans Concerned-North America (LC/NA), July 6-10, 2012 in Washington, DC. According to LC/NA, Bishop Hanson will be the first presiding bishop of any denomination to be their keynote speaker. The LC/NA was a powerful partner in influencing the ELCA in 2009 to accept practicing homosexuals onto its clergy roster, and it continues to help shape ELCA policy to accept and promote the homosexual lifestyle in its congregations as well as in society at large. Once again, Bishop Hanson will place his stamp of approval on the ELCA’s sanctioning of sin and acceptance of sexual perversion as a normative lifestyle.

According to LC/NA’s promotional for this event, Bible studies for the event will be conducted by ELCA pastor, Nadia Bolz Weber, a leading voice in the emergent church movement, “who has probably done more than any other pastor in recent times to poke therapeutic fun at the misdemeanors and flaws of overly churched Christianity and Christians.” Nadia Bolz-Weber is known also for salty language from both her pen and her pulpit. She is the founding pastor of House for all Sinners and Saints, Denver, CO.

A featured event at the July LC/NA gathering will be the presentation of the James Siefkes award to a person or persons who have made significant contribution to advancing the cause of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transsexual Lutherans. Bishop Herbert Chilstrom and his wife Corrine were among the most recent recipients of the Siefkes award.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

We Lutheran Christians sometimes find ourselves caught between two conflicting aspects of our traditions. On the one hand, we have a reputation for being slow to accept change. On the other hand, we were among the first to embrace new technology for worship and Christian education. Luther put Gutenberg’s printing press to good use printing the first mass-produced Bible. Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach helped make the pipe organ the voice of Lutheran worship music.

One of the new technologies that is increasingly being used for worship is projection screens. As with other innovations, there are some problems and objections to overcome.

One of the objections to using projection screens is that often all that is projected are the words. Another objection is that what’s on the screens often distracts from worship. A gorgeous scenic panorama on every slide can be distracting. And a third objection is that quite often, worshippers encounter projection screens at worship services that leave out much of the rich liturgical traditions of Lutheran worship practices. Those objections all have some truth to them, but projection slides for liturgical Lutheran worship can avoid those problems.

Using screens has some real advantages. We Lutherans all know about the challenges of the “Lutheran Shuffle”. That includes looking up the hymns, and marking them with pieces of paper, getting the bulletin insert ready with the Prayer of the Day, having places marked to flip to the Creed or the Order for Public Confession. If a congregation used two hymnals, such as the Lutheran Book of Worship and With One Voice, the confusion was increased. For first-time visitors, the “Lutheran Shuffle” can be daunting. One has to wonder how many first-time visitors didn’t become second-time visitors because the liturgy was too confusing to follow.

The church I’m a member of, Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, has figured out how to use projection screens to their best effect for traditional, liturgical Lutheran worship. I was blessed to have been able to take over the job of preparing the weekly slides for our worship. I’ve been preparing the weekly worship slides for almost a year now, as well as special slide sets for seasons like Lent.

I’ve also been looking for a way to earn a living, when I learned that many congregations didn’t have anyone who could prepare their worship slides for them. As I was taught many years ago, when God gives you a talent and shows you that people need that talent, that’s a call. I remembered Luke 10:7, “the laborer deserves to be paid”, so I decided to offer my services to any congregation that needs someone to prepare their slides for them.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Living Word Lutheran Church in Milbank, SD is growing. The new congregation reports it now has 352 baptized members.

Mt. Zion Lutheran Church, Lucas, OH has successfully taken their first vote to withdraw from the ELCA.

First Lutheran Church, Northwood, IA failed in its first vote to leave the ELCA, 133 voted to stay in the ELCA while 94 voted to withdraw.

Spirit of the Desert Lutheran Church, Las Vegas, is the only mission congregation of the LCMC in Nevada.

Salem Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Long Lake, SD has voted the leave the ELCA and join the LCMC.

St. James Lutheran Church, Leola, SD passed its second vote to leave the ELCA, January 22, 2012, 58 in favor 11 opposed.

We have removed from our list of churches that voted to leave the ELCA--Roslyn Lutheran Church, Roslyn, SD. According to a posting on the Synod's web site, Roslyn successfully passed its second vote; however, the congregation does not believe the vote was successful. Fron Lutheran Church, their sister congregation in the same parish did successfully vote to leave the ELCA. No word on what the Roslyn Lutheran Church has planned for future action.

ELCA churches throughout the country are continuing to vote to leave the ELCA. Stay tuned....

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Washington state lawmakers voted to approve gay marriage Wednesday, setting the stage for the state to become the seventh in the nation to allow same-sex couples to wed.The action comes a day after a federal appeals court declared California's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, saying it was a violation of the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples.

The Washington House passed the bill on a 55-43 vote. Supporters in the public viewing galleries stood and cheered as many on the Democratic side of the House floor hugged after the vote.

CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement late on Friday declaring that the small alteration President Barack Obama had announced earlier in the day to a regulation that would force all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that cause abortion--is 'unacceptable" because, among other things, it does not protect the freedom-of-conscience rights of secular for-profit employers, or secular non-profit employers, or religious insurers, or self-insured religious employers, or individual Americans

The alteration President Obama described Friday says merely that insurance companies providing coverage to employees of religious institutions that object to sterilization, contraception or abortifacients will have to provide free coverage for these things to the employees rather than explicitly include them among the benefits covered by the premiums charged to the religious employer.
The regulation will still require individual Americans and private-sector employers to buy, and insurers to provide, insurance coverage that pays for sterilizations, contraception and abortifacients--even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.
The bishops expressed their hope that the new regulatory mandates the president described today "appear subject to some measure of change." "But," they said, "we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected." [The bolded text is in the original.]Here is the entirety of the bishops' statement explaining their continuing objections to the Obama administration's mandate that all heath-care plans must cover sterilizations, artificial contraception, and abortifacients--all of which the Catholic Church teaches are morally wrong:

Sunday, February 5, 2012

WELL, THE EFFORTS OF SUSAN G. KOMEN FOR THE CURE TO STAND FOR THE LIFE OF THE UNBORN DID NOT LAST LONG! THEY WILL GO ON FIGHTING BREAST CANCER WHILE MAKING HUGE GRANTS TO THE LARGEST ABORTION PROVIDING ORGANIZATION IN THE COUNTRY. VERY SAD! IT IS HARD TO STAND FOR RIGHT WHEN WRONG IS POPULAR!

About Me

David Barnhart received a Bachelor’s degree in education from Clarion State University, Clarion, Pa., and a Masters of Divinity degree from the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, SC. Ordained by the Lutheran Church in America in 1964, he pastored churches in that denomination for 20 years. In 1984, Pastor Barnhart withdrew from the Lutheran Church in America and united with the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations (AFLC). He establish Abiding Word Ministries (AWM) in that same year. Abiding Word Ministries, now in its 27th year, exists to promote revival and reformation throughout the Church. Pastor Barnhart publishes a newsletter called The Vine and Branches which is mailed to approximately 7500 homes throughout the United States and Canada. AWM counsels pastors, congregations and laity who desire to take their stand against false teachings and unbiblical practices within their church bodies.